We received the following note from one of our collector friends and thought our readers might enjoy his note:

Dear Tim Hughes and Rare Newspapers:

Sir, over the years, I have purchased many newspapers from you on eBay. They have included topics such as: 1795 Boston newspaper with articles about Geo Washington and Sam Adams; Civil War battle of Lexington, MO; Lincoln funeral in Philadelphia; Wm Jennings Bryan nominated for President in 1908; Sinking of the USS Maine; Wm McKinley assassination; Wilson’s 14 Points; and others. I’ve also got papers from WWII collected by my Grandma (Grandpa was overseas with Patton’s Third Army) as well as others that I’ve found at rummage sales. I also collect autographs (I have Wm Jennings Bryan, Rob’t Todd Lincoln, Lucretia Garfield, Paul Tibbets, Walter Mondale, and Mike Dukakis…if you find any autographs, please contact me!) and display them.

I thought you might be interested in how I display them in my class room. Let me know if you wish to use any of these photos for marketing purposes. Thanks for being such a tremendous resource to an American History enthusiast…who has the privilege to teach US History to 11th Graders! Your papers are part of nearly every lesson, every single day.

Sincerely,

David George

Lafayette High School

St. Joseph, MO

COREBELEIFS:

In my classroom, history is not the study of the past. I abhor the use of bland textbooks
and rote memorization of facts. Rather, I teach that history is the interpretation of the present as viewed through a prism of past human experiences. I encourage my students to realize that “historical figures” were once living breathing human beings. They may be gone, but the life lessons that they left behind can still empower us to improve our lives and to better understand our world. I believe that “hand’s on learning” provides students with the most ownership of their knowledge. For this reason, my classroom is a museum filled with dozens of historical artifacts and framed newspapers. For example, when studying the Lincoln assassination, I allow students to hold a tear-stained Philadelphia Inquirer from April 1865. My students have even had the opportunity to re-­‐enact the 2000 Florida Presidential election on an actual Dade County voting machine. As a practitioner of Problem Based Learning, I believe giving students access to actual historical documents and relics makes the lesson a truly authentic learning experience. I want my students to realize that history is a never-­‐ending story of human triumphs and tragedies. It is a story to which they are contributing. That is a powerful lesson.